Instructions

The Ancestry Site has the following objectives:

To allow the user to check for free the digital copies of the Civil Registries and, more rarely, other genealogical documents and the census files, preserved in each State Archive, using even (where available) the database of the indexes quoted on the registries;

To provide broad information about useful documents for genealogical, census, family and personal history research held by the Italian State Archives (Civil Registries, recruitment lists, military records, etc.), as well as in nominal databases, obtained from these documents, which are available online or in study rooms of different archives (The Land and the Sources).

The copies of Civil Registries are organized by State Archives, which held the originals and can be found in a list at the sections “Browse the registries”. It is also possible to search the registries of a specific City Council, series (births, marriages, deaths, etc.) or searching by date or period in the section Find the registries.

In order to protect the privacy of personal data only 100-year-old birth certificates and 70-year-old marriage and death certificates are available through this Site.

In order to make your research easier, registries have been divided in three historical periods, based on the date in which the modern civil registry was established: Napoleonic civil registry (1806-1815); Monarchy Restoration civil registry (1815-1865); Italian civil registry (1865-…).

This organization may not correspond to the way the original registries are organized at the State Archives. Nevertheless, the data that comes out from that research may help you find the original registry at the current file that holds it, in case you have to check or request authenticated copies of the documents (link a 2.1.3.). You may find further information about the organization of the State Archives and other features on the upper side of the pages that publish the images.

The General Directorate for Archives of the Ministry of Cultural Activities, Heritage and Tourism is the holder of all image rights. The use of these images is strictly personal, these images can’t be published in other sites, portals or books without express authorization from the holder of the image rights. In any case those images cannot be used for commercial purposes.

You can request HD images from the registries to the State Archive that hold the original files, as long as you pay the corresponding fee stipulated by ministerial decree of April 8, 1994, G. U. of May 6 1994 integrated by the “Fees on digital products” attached to the circular 21 of June 17 2005 of the General Directorate for Archives.

You may find the name of the person you are looking for at the section Find the names and, if the registries in which this person appears have been indexed, you can request the act of the Civil Registry in which this person is quoted.

Please keep in mind that only a small part of the registries have been indexed. You can also search in the annual and decennial original indexes, drafted by the offices of the Civil Registry.

The users that discover genealogical research and archives can find useful suggestions on how they can start the research of their ancestors in the section The genealogic research.

You may find collections of home movies and other materials that tell us about the changes that Italian family and society passed through the 20th centuries in the section “Family Stories”. The section “Tell us your family story” allows us, at the same time, to give some sort of narrative dimension to the census and genealogical research and to illustrate our personal research experience. That way the Ancestry Site is at the service of both the genealogical research and family and private individuals history.